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Books by Martin Luther King,
Jr.
The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.
/
Strength to Love /
The Measure of a Man /
Why We Can't Wait
A Testament of Hope /
A Knock at Midnight /
The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., 1948-1963
Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community /
Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story
* * * * *
Where Do We Go from Here—Chaos
or Community
By Stanford Lewis This April marks the 38th
anniversary Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination,
and African-Americans, by way of the national media,
will once again begin their superficial analysis of the
great man’s life.
Let’s start by asking the usual
questions: Where do we go from here—chaos or community?
Why can’t black people wait? Black people have made
great progress since the 1950 and ’60s—or have they?
These queries will be thoroughly overworked during the
next few days.
The media annually turn King—an
eloquent and profound theologian—into a kind of minstrel
who is trotted out to sell their uncritical version of
the American dream. King was not that kind of dreamer,
however. He was a leader who through his words, actions,
and courage fought structural racism, poverty,
materialism, and militarism.
To properly celebrate the great man’s
life we must examine the economic and social goals for
which he strove, particularly during the last five years
of his life, when he challenged the structured racism,
poverty, materialism, and American value system that
plagued his world, and still plagues ours. Only in this
way can African-Americans truly hope to gain a valid
perspective on the progress we’ve made since King’s
assassination. And if we are going to celebrate him, we
should at least examine what he was fighting for.
Structural Class and Race Issues
King identified the “tragic gulf”
that existed between the civil rights laws that were
being passed during the 1960s and their implementation.
He came to understand that there was a double standard
in respect to particular laws, and that white America
had “backlashed against the fundamental God-given human
rights of the Negro American for more than three hundred
years . . . ” Contrary to popular belief, the racism
that King experienced—and that our society continues to
be plagued with—was not merely the individualistic
prejudiced attitude held against a particular person or
people. King came to understand that racism had more to
do with power/economics (racisms = power + prejudice),
which could deny an entire group access to
opportunities.
The Fight for the Have-nots
Continues
African-Americans currently have a
substantial middle class. Nevertheless, masses of
African-Americans still live on or extremely close to
the poverty line. Black people are still plagued by the
trinity of poverty, ignorance and disease. During his
short lifetime, King felt compelled to fight against the
ultraconservatism of his times, and even went so far as
to criticize many of the so-called “middle-class black
population” for both privately and publicly deserting
the less fortunate. And he clearly spoke to them, by
brazenly stating in the 1960s, “The middle-class Negro
is our problem.” He queried: “How many successful
Negroes have forgotten that uneducated and
poverty-stricken mother and fathers often worked until
their eyebrows were scorched and their hands bruised so
that their children could get an education? And, sadly,
he came to feel that “for any middle-class Negro to
forget the masses is an act not only of neglect but
shameful ingratitude.”
Admittedly, King was a little
frustrated with black America when he made that
statement in 1967, but would he be less frustrated
today—almost four decades later—when so many of our
middle class are full retreat from the suffering masses?
As King forewarned, “The salvation of the Negro
middle-class is ultimately dependent upon the salvation
of the Negro masses.” Of course it is time for the Negro
middle-class to rise up from its stool of indifference,
stop retreating into dreamlands with flights of
unreality, and—with compassion—aid the less advantaged;
bringing their hearts, minds, and checkbooks to help
their less fortunate brothers.
American Value System
Near the end of his far too short
life, King began rethinking many of the ideas about
America’s values that he had previously accepted
uncritically. He was slowly coming to the conclusion
that American values were deeply flawed, often both
inhumane and unjust. He called for a “revolution of
values,” and said, “Let us, therefore, not think of our
movement as one that seeks to integrate the Negro into
all the existing values of American society. Let us be
those ‘creative dissenters’ who will call our beloved
nation to a higher destiny, to a new plateau of
compassion, to a more noble expression of humaneness.”
He was calling upon African-Americans to become a
“colony of dissenters” who challenged America to be fair
with all of her citizens.
For those of us who maintain that
African-Americans have made great progress since the
1950s and ’60s, we must state unequivocally that
progress has undeniably been made in many areas.
Nevertheless, if we are to truly gauge the weight of
that progress we must be willing to examine how far the
black Americans and progressive-minded people who were
fighting structural racism, poverty, materialism and the
American value system over 38 years ago were able to
un-burden the masses.
* *
* * *
Stanford Lewis is an instructor of
religion and philosophy at LeMoyne-Owen College. He is a
native Memphian and a graduate of both Harvard and
Cornell. He is the author of The Falsification
and Fabrication of Ancient Egypt, 2400
bce TO 500
bce: A Survey of the Literature.
posted 3 April 2006 |
